Oil falls as investors cash in on OPEC deal rally, dollar rises

The United States, now the world’s biggest oil producer but not a member of OPEC, said it had little faith in the deal leading to higher prices in the long term. Amos Hochstein, the U.S. energy envoy, said in a Reuters interview the deal will either lead to higher U.S. production and trigger another price fall or allow U.S. producers to expand market share.

By Karolin Schaps | LONDON

Oil prices fell on Friday on a stronger dollar and as investors cashed in on a 6-percent rise in just one day after OPEC members agreed to reduce output for the first time in eight years to stifle a two-year price slide.

Global benchmark Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down $1.03 at $48.21 a barrel by 1006 GMT, but still 4.5 percent higher than before the OPEC agreement on Wednesday.

U.S. crude CLc1 was down 66 cents at $47.17 a barrel, around 5 percent higher than before the OPEC announcement. read more

MARKETWATCH: Oil prices continue to fall as doubts over OPEC agreement build

By Jenny W. Hsu and Sara McFarlane

Published: Sept 30, 2016 6:49 a.m. ET

Oil futures fell Friday as investors cashed in their recent gains and skepticism grew over a tentative agreement to cut production among members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

FULL ARTICLE

Shell estimates annual Argentina investment of $300 million through 2020

Thu Sep 29, 2016 | 8:50pm BS

Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) plans to invest $300 million a year in Argentina through 2020 in exploration as well as refining, distribution and marketing, the company said in a statement on Thursday.

The announcement came after Shell Chief Executive Ben van Beurden met with Argentine President Mauricio Macri in Buenos Aires. Shell has been working to launch an early production well in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale reserves.

(Reporting by Juliana Castilla; Writing by Caroline Stauffer; Editing by Peter Cooney) read more

OPEC decision on daily oil output freeze to have no impact on Shell’s strategy

September 29, 2016

Baku-APA. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) agreement to freeze daily oil output will not affect Royal Dutch Shell ‘s current strategy, a spokesman for one of the world’s largest oil companies told Sputnik on Thursday, APA reports quoting Sputnik.

On Wednesday, OPEC oil producing countries agreed a preliminary deal on the sidelines of an international energy forum in Algiers, Algeria. The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day for the whole cartel.  read more

Is OPEC’s Output Deal A Game Changer For Royal Dutch Shell And BP?

Royston Wild: Sept 29, 2016

Investors in the fossil fuel sector have finally had cause to celebrate this week after OPEC suggested that an output freeze could finally be in the offing.

The idea had initially been tabled at the start of the year as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela and Russia got around the table. But Iran’s determination to get the pumps ramped back up to pre-sanction levels put the plan firmly on the backburner.

However, with Tehran’s reluctance to take part in a deal now apparently thawing, stock pickers have become more optimistic over the growth outlook for many of the oil industry’s major players. read more

Shell and BP shareholders can use votes to make firms go green, campaign group says

Written by Mark Lammey – 29/09/2016 7:42 am

A campaign group is urging Shell and BP shareholders to use binding votes on pay plans to encourage bosses to embrace green energy, a news report said yesterday.

ShareAction said sticking with old remuneration policies that reward executives for digging for oil would lead to both companies becoming obsolete and going bankrupt, The Guardian reported.

In line with rules introduced in 2013, large companies like Shell and BP face binding shareholder votes on three-year pay policies next year, the report said. read more

Opinion: Putting a Shell Spring (board) in our step

Written by Euan Hogg – 29/09/2016 6:00 am

Oil major Shell plans to fork out a six-figure sum this year to support UK firms developing low carbon technology.

The Shell Springboard scheme will hand £150,000 to a national champion and £40,000 each to five regional winners.

Here Euan Hogg, a winner from last year, talks about how the cash boost helped him.

In March 2016, Shell Springboard awarded Water Engine Technologies an equity-free grant of £40,000 as the programme’s regional winner. read more

Shell’s Growth Priority Over The Next Five Years — Deepwater

Trefis Team SEP 29, 2016 @ 08:42 AM

With the ever-growing energy needs worldwide, the conventional sources of energy are likely to exhaust soon. Having explored the majority of the onshore reserves, oil and gas producers around the globe are now moving to offshore reserves, that are primarily formations in deep waters, containing thick layers of oil and gas in permeable rock. Consequently, Deepwater drilling, often used to categorize drilling in water depths of greater than around 400 meters, has become an attractive alternative to onshore drilling. In line with this growing trend, Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) has categorized Deepwater as one of its growth priorities for the next five years. (Also Read: Shell’s Growth Priority Over The Next Five Years – Chemicals) In this note, we discuss the growth potential of the deepwater market, Shell’s positioning in this market, and its strategy going forward. read more

Iraq’s OPEC revolt shows Saudi-Iran oil deal fragility

By Rania El Gamal and Alex Lawler | ALGIERS

For years, debates in the OPEC conference room were dominated by clashes between top producer Saudi Arabia and arch-rival Iran.

But as the two managed to find a rare compromise on Wednesday – with Riyadh softening its stance towards Tehran – a third OPEC superpower emerged.

Iraq overtook Iran as the group’s second-largest producer several years ago but kept its OPEC agenda fairly low-profile. On Wednesday, Baghdad finally made its presence felt. read more

Shares in oil giants BP and Shell surge on production cut deal

The agreement by OPEC countries boosts hopes for a sector which has seen mass job cuts, but could push up prices at the pump.

Thursday 29 September 2016

Shares in Royal Dutch Shell and BP have surged after top oil producing countries agreed to cut production for the first time in eight years.

Shell climbed 6% and BP was up 4% following the decision by OPEC – with other commodity firms also performing strongly.

The stocks helped the FTSE 100 Index turn 1% higher, with improvements also seen in French and German markets, following an upturn for Asian shares overnight.

OPEC’s agreement on Wednesday helped the price of a barrel of Brent crude climb above $49 overnight, before slipping back slightly. read more

BP and Shell investors urged to reward bosses for backing green energy

Shareholders should use binding votes on pay policies next year to push executives to stick to climate goals, says ShareAction

Sean Farrell: Thursday 29 September 2016 00.01 BST

Shell and BP’s pay plans encourage their bosses to dig for oil instead of investing in low-carbon energy and should be overhauled by shareholders, according to the campaign group ShareAction.

Investors in the oil companies should use binding votes on pay policies next year to scrap short-term targets and reward chief executives for working towards the target set in Paris last December to limit global temperature increases to 2C or less, the responsible investment group says in a report. read more

Russia’s Gazprom plans to launch third LNG train at Sakhalin-2 in 2021

By Katya Golubkova | YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK/PRIGORODNOYE, RUSSIA: Thu Sep 29, 2016 | 2:25am EDT

Gazprom said on Thursday it plans to launch a third liquefied natural gas (LNG) production train at the Sakhalin-2 LNG plant in 2021, possibly fed by a newly drilled field, as Russian companies seek to boost their share of the global LNG market.

Russia accounts for less than 5 percent of the global LNG market but new plants are being built or considered by Novatek, Gazprom and Rosneft.

Located at Prigorodnoye on Sakhalin island, Sakhalin-2, Russia’s sole LNG plant, operates two production lines with a combined capacity of 10 million tonnes of LNG per year. The third train should add another 5 million tonnes. read more

CTV News: Shell Canada accident report: pipe fell to within 12 metres of oil well off N.S.

Michael Tutton, The Canadian Press

Published Wednesday, September 28, 2016 6:36PM EDT

HALIFAX — When heaving waters in the North Atlantic wrenched a string of massive steel pipes from a drilling ship off Nova Scotia’s coast, one of the 20-tonne sections of the plummeting coil struck the seabed just 12 metres from the top of an undersea oil exploration well.

The distance is one of several details in a Shell Canada accident report received through access to information legislation, prompting critics to say the entire incident was too close for comfort in an area near one of Atlantic Canada’s richest fishing grounds of the Scotian shelf. read more

By Bill Campbell (Retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International)

Comment on: Shell Australia’s giant Prelude floating LNG project likely to come on stream in 2017

(refer to 295-page Report by Economics and Industry Steering Committee issued 7 May 2015)

Much has been written on this website about FLNG, the Prelude specifically raising doubts about the validity of claims by Shell that FLNG risks are as safe as if not more so than conventional offshore installations. The Government report raised considerable concerns in relation to the safety of FLNG facilities. In particular, concerns were raised about the compact nature of the working environment offshore relative to the space afforded to an onshore LNG processing plant and that the facilities will remain manned during cyclonic storms. read more

Royal Dutch Shell CEO tells President Temer the country is expected to be one of the top investment focuses for the multinational in the coming years. 

Beurden stated that Shell’s partnership with Petrobras in the pre-salt projects remain a priority for the multinational, despite the negative news in the international media about the corruption scandal in the Brazilian company.

By Lise Alves on September 28, 2016

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL – Reiterating that there is a favorable investment climate in Brazil, the president of petroleum giant Royal Dutch Shell, Ben Van Beurden, told Brazil’s President Michel Temer of the company’s interest in maintaining and increasing investments in the country.

“We have plans for a future together. We came here to talk about the confidence we have in the country and some points that can be improved,” Beurden told journalists after attending meetings with President Temer and Petrobras CEO, Pedro Parente on Tuesday. read more

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia, Sept 28 (Reuters) – Partners at Russia’s Sakhalin-2, the sole liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the country, have agreed on the strategy of marketing LNG from the planned third train, Olivier Lazare, head of Royal Dutch Shell in Russia, told a conference.

Sakhalin-2 is currently operating two LNG production trains with combined capacity of around 10 million tonnes of LNG per year. The planned third train should add another 5 million tonnes of annual capacity. read more

By Irina Slav – Sep 27, 2016, 10:05 AM CDT

Shell’s Nigerian division has shut down one of the two pipelines that carry Bonny light crude to its Forcados terminal in the Niger Delta, saying a fire was detected “on the right of way” of the pipeline. The shutdown will take 180,000 bpd off Shell’s Nigerian exports.

At the same time, the company continues to refuse to confirm or deny an announcement from the Niger Delta Avengers from Saturday that they’d blown up a Bonny Light pipeline. Shell has two pipelines bringing crude of this blend to Forcados, and the fire was detected at the Trans Niger Pipeline. It remains unclear whether the fire is a consequence of the NDA attack or if the attack was on the other pipeline. read more

From left, Alberta Minister of Energy Marg McCuaig-Boyd, Shell Canada President Lorraine Mitchelmore, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Ben van Beurden, Marathon Oil Executive Brian Maynard, Shell ER Manager, Stephen Velthuizen, and British High Commissioner to Canada Howard Drake open the valve to the Quest carbon capture and storage facility in Fort Saskatchewan Alta, on Friday November 6, 2015. Quest is designed to capture and safely store more than one million tonnes of CO2 each year an equivalent to the emissions from about 250,000 cars. JASON FRANSON / THE CANADIAN PRESS read more

Shell says a fire has forced it to close a key oil pipeline feeding Nigeria’s strategic Bonny Export Terminal, which militants attacked last week.

The ongoing challenges are losing oil multinationals billions of dollars in what used to be Africa’s biggest petroleum producer.

SBM Intelligence risk analysts estimate that renewed militant attacks, low oil prices and weak refinery margins have cost Dutch-British Shell and U.S.-based Chevron and ExxonMobil $7.1 billion in the first half of the year, representing about 70 percent of earnings. read more

Boats sail past Pulau Bukom on June 8, 2016.PHOTO: REUTERS

27 Sept 2016

SINGAPORE (REUTERS) – A unit at Royal Dutch Shell’s manufacturing site at Pulau Bukom in Singapore experienced an “operational upset” on Tuesday resulting in flaring with dark smoke, a spokeswoman said.

“This has since subsided after the affected unit was stabilised,” she said.

There was no fire as a result of the flaring and the rest of the site is operating normally, she added. read more

BY SAHARA REPORTERS, NEW YORK: 26 SEPT 2016

A trunk line carrying crude oil in the Goi community in the Ogoniland area of Rivers State became engulfed in dark plums of smoke and flames on Monday morning. The trunk line belongs to the Shell Petroleum Development Company.

Celestine Akpobari, an environmental activist who visited the site, said the inferno occurred just a few meters away from a military surveillance post. According to her, the fire immediately followed the sound of an eruption affecting the Agbada/Bomu trunk line. read more

By Chiemelie Ezeobi and Sylvester Idowu: 26 Sept 2016

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday condemned in strong terms, the renewed hostilities by the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA).

The group at the weekend claimed responsibility for the bombing of Bonny pipeline in Rivers State.

MEND also dissociated itself from the ‘holier than thou’ and arrogant attitude of the Pan-Niger Delta Group over the proposed Niger Delta Summit convened by the federal government. read more

Written by Mark Lammey – 26/09/2016 4:30 am

Shell will fork out £350,000 this year to support pioneering UK companies which develop low carbon technology.

The Shell Springboard scheme will hand £150,000 to a national champion and £40,000 each to five regional winners.

The victors will also get advice from academics, investors and policy makers, as well as access to Shell exhibitions and workshops.

The application period closes on October 28 and the winners will be announced in spring 2017. read more

Published September 26, 2016 Associated Press

WARRI, Nigeria –  Shell Nigeria is refusing to confirm a report by Niger Delta militants that they have bombed its Bonny oil pipeline in the south, crippling its exports.

Friday night’s bombing breaks a month-long ceasefire between militant groups and the government and comes days after repairs from an earlier attack had allowed exports to resume.

Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo says he cannot comment on the incident.

The Niger Delta Avengers say its attack is “only a wake-up call” responding to a clampdown by security forces that it says violated the ceasefire. The military has reported arresting at least two Avenger commanders last week. read more

Jody Godoy

Law360, New York (September 23, 2016, 4:53 PM EDT)

Shell Oil Co. has agreed to pay $20 million to settle claims by California’s water quality regulator and a whistleblower that the company had billed a state fund for cleanup work already covered by insurance proceeds, the agency said on Friday.

Shell will pay the State Water Resources Control Board $11.3 million to drop administrative proceedings over 100 claims to a cleanup fund for leaky underground storage tanks. The agency said Shell was able to get repaid through insurance or litigation, but had omitted that fact… read more

All eyes are on Saudi Arabia and other big producers as the oil price hovers around $40 a barrel

Oil prices could be headed back below $40 a barrel, with a deal this week between the world’s top exporters looking increasingly remote.

Opec meets for three-day talks in Algiers tomorrow, with the cartel still divided on its response to oil’s price slump.

Brent crude fell sharply to under $46 a barrel on Friday, as hopes of a production cut faded. Analysts at Citigroup said the price could slide below $40 unless big producers led by Saudi Arabia can hammer out a deal to pump less crude. Forecasters at Macquarie Group, meanwhile, said that even if a production freeze can… read more

The plunge in oil prices over the past two years forced the government to draw down on its deposits in the banking system…

By Alaa Shahine and Stefania Bianchi: 25 Sept 2016

Saudi Arabia’s central bank stepped up efforts to support lenders in the Arab world’s biggest economy as they grapple with the effects of low oil prices.

The Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, as the central bank is known, said it decided to give banks about 20 billion riyals ($5.3 billion) in the form of time deposits “on behalf of government entities.” It’s also introducing seven-day and 28-day repurchase agreements, as part of its “supportive monetary policy.”

The plunge in oil prices over the past two years forced the government to draw down on its deposits in the banking system, squeezing domestic liquidity. That’s pushed up the three-month Saudi Interbank Offered Rate, a key benchmark used for pricing loans, to the highest level since 2009. The central bank was said to have offered lenders 15 billion riyals in short-term loans in June to help ease liquidity constraints. read more

Blogpost by Rex Weyler – 23 September 2016

In August 2016, Prestel Books published Photos That Changed the World, including this image of the Greenpeace Brent Spar campaign, captured by David Sims on 16 June 1995.

The story begins in the 1950s, when Royal Dutch Shell found oil near Groningen, in Permian sandstone linked to North Sea formations. By 1971, Shell had located the giant Brent oilfield in the North Sea, 220km east of Shetland, England. The Brent field produced a valuable, low sulphur crude, and set the standard for the European, or “Brent”, oil price. read more

Next year will mark the end of an era as Royal Dutch Shell largely abandons its iconic tower and consolidates workers on the west side of town in its Woodcreek complex in the Energy Corridor and the Shell Technology Center a few miles south of Woodcreek. Only Shell’s energy trading team will remain downtown.

The move – largely to cut costs in the ongoing oil bust – continues the exodus of Big Oil from downtown Houston. Exxon Mobil moved out last year when it built its massive new campus by Spring. Of Houston’s 10 largest energy employers, just Chevron and CenterPoint Energy remain downtown. read more

Extracts from an article by Colm Keena published by The Irish Times on 22 Sept 2016

Shell E&P Ireland Offshore Inc associated with Corrib gas project

Two companies registered in the Bahamas and used by Dublin property investor Paul Fenelon for investments in the UK are among companies of Irish interest on the Corporate Registry of the Bahamas.

The registry, normally difficult to access, is being made publicly available by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), of which The Irish Times is a media partner.

Shell E & P Ireland Offshore Inc, a company with an address in Nassau, has had a number of Irish directors over the years, starting in 2000.  The company is associated with the Corrib gas project in Co Mayo. read more

BY DALE KASLER: [email protected]: 23 Sept 2016

Shell and its Equilon Enterpises LLC affiliate were essentially caught double-billing the state fund

Shell Oil Co. and an affiliate have agreed to pay $20 million to California officials over false claims the companies submitted to a state-run underground storage tank cleanup fund, California officials said Friday.

As part of the settlement, state officials permanently rejected cleanup claims from Shell and the affiliate totaling as much as $150 million.

Andrew DiLuccia, a spokesman for the State Water Resources Control Board, said Shell and its Equilon Enterpises LLC affiliate were essentially caught double-billing the state fund. “They were getting reimbursement for cleanup costs from an insurer,” he said. read more

By REUTERS: PUBLISHED: 23 September 2016

AMSTERDAM, Sept 23 (Reuters) – Gas extraction from the northern Groningen gas field will be held at 24 billion cubic metres per year for the coming five years, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Friday.

The decision made on Friday by Rutte’s government cemented a preliminary plan to cut output to minimise the risk of earthquakes resulting from production at Groningen, which once supplied 10 percent of the gas used in the European Union. read more

By Ed Crooks: September 23, 2016

One of the most reliable features of negotiations over oil production is a divergence between what countries say and what they do.

Three weeks ago, Russia and Saudi Arabia were discussing co-operation to stabilise the oil market. This week there was talk of a year-long agreement between Russia and Opec to cap production. At the same time, however, Russia has been stepping up its drilling in the mature fields of western Siberia, taking its oil output to new record highs. Its production is forecast by Goldman Sachs to grow a further 590,000 barrels per day over the next three years. read more

By Lee Wild | Thu, 22nd September 2016

Running an income fund has been fairly straightforward for the past few years. Drug giants like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and AstraZeneca (AZN) have kept up shareholder returns and the telecoms sector has offered rich pickings. So have BP (BP.) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSB). However, income plays are becoming more expensive, and now we’re hearing that Shell’s dividend record is in serious danger.

Shell has not cut the dividend since the Second World War; it’s a fact we love to repeat whenever the conversation turns to the oil sector and dividends. And, despite a 55% rally since late January, the shares still offers a prospective dividend yield of 7.3%. read more

By Ron Bousso and Jonathan Saul | LONDON

A.P. Moller-Maersk (MAERSKb.CO) is in talks to buy a portfolio of North Sea assets from Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) as the Danish group considers adding scale to its oil and gas business ahead of a planned spin off, banking sources said.

Maersk announced on Thursday a major overhaul that will see it focus on its core transport and logistics businesses, while looking at options for its energy division within 24 months that could include a joint venture, merger or listing. read more

Thu Sep 22, 2016 | 5:53pm BST

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) said flaring on Thursday at the Norco, Louisiana manufacturing complex shared with the Motiva Enterprises [MOTIV.UL] refinery was due to an upset in the company’s chemical plant.

The refinery and chemical plant share the safety flare system at the complex and when the flare goes off it is sometimes reported as being due to a malfunction at the refinery.

(Reporting by Erwin Seba; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

SOURCE

Written by Rita Brown – 21/09/2016 7:00 am

Shell has made plans to move the bulk of its staff out of its historic Houston base.

The company informed staff that more than 3,400 workers would be relocated from its base in the Houston Central Business District to its facilities on the west side of the city.

Shell’s base, known as One Shell Plaza, was completed in 1971. At the time it was the tallest tower in the city. A spokesperson confirmed that only staff in trading will remain at site, which makes up part of the downtown Houston skyline. read more

By: Staff The Canadian Press Published on Wed Sep 21 2016

HALIFAX — Shell has plugged the first of its deepwater exploration wells off Nova Scotia, saying it didn’t find enough oil to make it worth proceeding.

The well is located about 250 kilometres offshore of Halifax on the Scotian shelf.

The company says in a news release that the work on the Cheshire well was completed last week.

It says it has started working on a second exploration well, Monterey Jack, at a location about 120 kilometres southwest of the Cheshire location. read more

The move will affect 3,400 employees when it takes place early next year as part of “an effort to meet the ever changing market conditions and optimize resources for future opportunities,” Shell said in a statement Tuesday. Employees will move to the company’s Woodcreek facility and Shell Technology Center on the west side of town.

Those who work for Shell’s downtown trading operations will stay put, although the company said it eventually plans to have all of its Houston-based staff in company-owned facilities on the west side. read more

September 20, 2016, 4:48 P.M. ET

By Dimitra DeFotis

Allegedly illegal Nigerian oil exports valued at $12.7 billion are at the heart of a lawsuit the country has filed against units of Chevron (CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), Total (TOT) ENI (E) and Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR).

The case points to outsiders’ shipments to the United States between 2011 and 2014, but is likely to expose domestic corruption as well. Militants have crippled Nigeria’s oil production this year, a recurring theme over recent decades. Lagos hearings, which begin next week, come as the country struggles with the affects of policy stagnation, currency devaluation, inflation and low oil revenue. read more

Tue Sep 20, 2016 | 8:49pm BST

Shell Oil Co, the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, plans to move most of the operations at its company’s downtown headquarters to new offices on the city’s west side, Shell announced to employees on Tuesday.

Only Shell Oil’s U.S. trading floor with remain in Shell Plaza after the first quarter of 2017, the company said in a statement.

Shell follows ExxonMobil Corp, which relocated 10,000 employees from offices across Houston, including downtown, to a custom-built complex 25 miles (40 km) north of the city in 2015. read more

Sep 20 2016, 15:19 ET | By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Nigerian officials say the government is suing several major oil companies for $12.7B of oil that allegedly was exported illegally to the U.S. during 2011-14.

The Federal High Court in Lagos begins hearings next week in cases filed against Nigerian subsidiaries of Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), Eni (NYSE:E), Total (NYSE:TOT) and Petrobras (NYSE:PBR).

The officials say the government alleges that the companies did not declare more than 57M barrels of crude oil shipments. read more

Written by Niamh Burns – 20/09/2016 9:46 am

Oil major Shell has cut 225 positions from its operations in Norway following its takeover of BG Group.

The company said in May it would be making around 140 employees redundant with staff able to apply for severance packages.

According to reports in Norwegian media, 145 employees have lost their jobs while another 110 members of staff will also go.

A spokesman for the company said while some workers had taken voluntary redundancy, Shell would need to look at making additional job cuts. read more

20 September 2016

Royal Dutch Shell is building the world’s largest floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project, which has the potential to transform the way natural gas resources are developed. It is designed to recover resources offshore that would otherwise be too costly or difficult to develop without the need to lay pipelines and build processing plants on land. In this article, Hazardex takes a look at the latest developments in this ground-breaking project.

The Prelude natural gas field was discovered by Shell in the Browse Basin off north Western Australia in 2007 with an additional field, Concerto, discovered nearby in 2009. Combined, these gas fields have around 3 trillion cubic feet of liquids-rich gas. The Australian Government gave the Prelude FLNG project environmental approval on November 12, 2010, and Shell took the final investment decision (FID) on May 20, 2011. read more

By Phil Heidenreich: 19 Sept 2016

Shell Canada said three of its employees are back at work and doing well after experiencing an “unexpected electrical arc flash” at the company’s Scotford oil refinery and chemical plant Sunday.

In a statement to Global News, Shell Canada said the workers were taken to the company’s health centre as a precaution and “cleared for full duty later that evening.” The company said it’s now investigating what caused the incident.

The U.S. Department of Labor defines an arc flash as a “phenomenon where a flashover of electric current leaves its intended path and travels through the air from one conductor to another or, or to ground.” It said the when arc flashes occur with people nearby, “the results are often violent” and can lead to serious injury or death. read more

By LAURA CHESTERS FOR THE DAILY MAIL: 19 September 2016

Oil is slowly climbing back to $50 a barrel as a deal between Saudi Arabia and Russia and an agreement on production in Venezuela helped to stabilise prices.

The production agreements could finally give some assurances to dozens of companies who have suffered since crude slumped from $114 a barrel in 2014 to $28 early this year.

Oil supermajors such as BP and Shell have been high-profile casualties, losing billions in profits.

They’ve written off billions of pounds and have had to slash tens of thousands of jobs as they change their businesses to cope with the reduced profits. read more

Gaurav Agnihotri: 19 Sept 2016

Oil prices fell last week after the IEA and OPEC reported in their respective oil market reports that the supply-demand rebalancing of oil will take longer than market expectations. The WTI (WTI) and Brent were down by almost 2% and were trading at $43.3 and $45.77 at the time of writing this article. Even the U.S rig count increased for the 12th week in a row. Oil prices are going down as markets have realized that global oil supplies are only going to increase in the coming time. “It really looks similar to the period of the early 1990s, when we were at $20 oil. Is $45 to $50 the new $20? I am not ready to say we are in this new equilibrium environment, but it sure does feel like we’re moving in that direction,” said the head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), Jeff Curie. It must be noted that investment firms such as Goldman Sachs have started lowering their 2017 forecast for oil prices. Let us look at those factors that are putting downward pressure on oil. read more

By Gary Bourgeault: 19 Sept 2016

There is one basic thing Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) (NYSE:RDS.B) needs to do to take full advantage of its LNG strategy, and that is to boost demand by increasing the number of fueling stations in the markets they’re competing in.

It has been marketing its LNG brand for some time, but it hasn’t had the desired impact in the short term because the infrastructure isn’t in place to respond to demand. If it can’t service demand than marketing efforts are underwhelming to say the least. read more

REGULARLY UPDATED: Links to over 500 articles (and radio and TV broadcasts) by a host of publishers including the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Dow Jones Newswires, Bloomberg, New York Times, CNBC, Forbes etc. Plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website, legal documents filed in the U.S. Courts, all containing references to the Donovan’s, their Shell related websites, or their former company, Don Marketing. Includes newspaper and magazine articles, newsletters, video clip links and interview transcripts. All in date order. In addition, there are references to our websites and/or our activities, published in over 100 books. In all, over 550 externally published references to date including articles originated by news agencies such as Reuters or Dow Jones, syndicated to a variety of individual publishers such as the New York Times or The Washington Post. Plus over 60,000 Shell related articles published on our own Shell focussed websites.  read more

By Ed Crooks: September 16, 2016

The more positive mood in crude prices last week always looked fragile, based as it was on nebulous talk about a possible Opec production freeze and volatile US data that were heavily influenced by storm Hermine at the beginning of the month.

That vulnerability was exposed this week. Brent crude, which briefly hit $50 per barrel on September 8, dropped below $46 on Friday.

As prices fell, analysts took differing views on the outlook. Bloomberg focused on the chance of a rebound, as markets started to focus on the growing risk of shortages. On the other hand, the FT’s Neil Hume pointed out that there was still more crude production capacity set to come on stream as a result of the investment binge of 2011-14 – not least the much delayed Kashagan field in Kazakhstan – meaning that prices could remain depressed in the short term. read more